Halfway Out of the Dark
by Mission to Marzipan
Summary: Being the son of Hades means that people automatically have a lot of preconceptions about you. Demigods are scared of you and it's almost impossible to fit in, no matter how much time goes by. But when Camp's rejection of Nico could put both Nico and the world at large in danger, Rachel decides to change the way that people think for good, no matter what the cost.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey.**

**This is a fic written for Proud to be Plug, a very dear friend of mine. Originally it was meant to be part of his Easter prompt fic exchange but it's, uh, late. And longer than I ever could have anticipated. Heh. Whoops. But that's okay. You've all met me, right? I don't think that you could have been expecting much else. The title is entirely his.**

**It's been sitting on my hard drive waiting for me to make it not suck for a long time now (I wrote it all at once and wow, it was terrible) but it's finally here. Unfortunately, my grandfather passed away this past Thursday and it's reminded me not to put things off. Procrastination is self-destructive, it detracts from your life, and the only person that misses out is you. So it was time to get off my backside. **

**The three prompts, which will be spread throughout, were:**

**Don't drink the water. **

**It's all Greek to me. **

**Black does not mean evil.**

**Let me know what you think.**

**Marz.**

* * *

Godsbedamned if red hair wasn't synonymous with being burnt to a cinder every time it wasn't, you know, night.

Still, being the Oracle came with some major perks and Rachel had sent one of the newest and youngest Campers scurrying with a Look to the attic of the Big House to fetch a sun umbrella for her to sit under. It turned out that people were afraid of you when you might at any minute foretell their imminent doom.

Go figure.

The umbrella was wedged deep in the sand of the training arena and she was lounging on a reclining lawn chair (also rescued from the attic), fanning herself idly with the sketchbook she was meant to be drawing in if it wasn't so damn hot.

Annabeth had joined Rachel in the shade. It seemed that she, too, could also intimidate the younger campers into hopping to (although with vastly different methods than those Rachel used) and was thus sprawled on a lawn chair that matched Rachel's.

Both of them had lived through both the second rounds of two major wars as teenagers and graduated college that summer to boot. If that didn't deserve lawn chairs and downtime then what did?

Oh, and alcohol. Resting on the ground between them was a pitcher of Long Island iced tea; the pitcher and the two glasses were oozing condensation and the ice cubes were melting at approximately the same rate as the Arctic.

"I always imagined that global warming would kill us all suddenly rather than do it slowly through dry roasting," Rachel mused, throwing the sketchbook down into her lap. It wasn't doing the job as a fan.

She craned her neck to see if she could see the small boy she had coerced into a trip to the attic earlier. He'd been wearing a man's sword that trailed along the ground behind him but she didn't see why that would stop him grabbing a palm frond and going at it. However, he was nowhere to be seen and she slumped back into the chair dejectedly.

Annabeth made a noncommittal noise and reached down for her drink without looking, sipping through the straw. From this angle, Rachel could see behind Annabeth's sunglasses; her grey eyes were darting to and fro as she watched the action in the arena in front of them. Rachel sighed and rolled her own eyes, sliding her sunglasses down her nose to peek over the top of them for a better view.

Nico and Percy, both in t-shirts soaked with sweat, were fighting Clarisse and Justin, the old head counsellor of the Nemesis cabin, who each looked just as hot. Justin was a tall redhead who had no more business being in the sun than she did and Rachel had no idea why he wasn't hiding in a cool, dark place until winter just to avoid the sunburn.

Perhaps that attitude explained why she was just the prophecy gal and not some frontline fighter. There wasn't enough factor 50 in the world to persuade her to step out of the umbrella's shade right now.

Behind the sparring foursome was a crowd of younger, new campers. They were basically just kids, barely claimed and incredibly wet behind the ears although there were some older campers there who had just come to watch the fight. The newer campers were the focus of the training exercise; the older ones were just there for the entertainment.

The older campers were more relaxed but the younger ones stood there open-mouthed watching the slashing and ducking and parrying, letting out involuntary squeaks and gasps every time someone came within less than five inches of having their guts slashed open.

Babies.

There was also a healthy dose of cheering and clapping when one of the fighters made a particularly good move.

It was that time of year when some of the graduates of Camp Half-Blood volunteered to return in order to show the new recruits a thing or two because Chiron trusted them more than anyone else he could find. Besides, all of them who had managed to survive the wars were happy to come back and train the next generation so the newbs would be prepared if the world decided to end again and they were too laid up with their lumbago to do anything about it.

Well, _most_ of them were glad. Rachel still remembered Nico's stinkface when Percy had suggested that they team up to get their stint of training out of the way; he had not been impressed at having to do it at all. She smiled at the memory, the whining, and settled back on her chair to watch the fight.

Nico was wearing a black t-shirt (never had anyone been able to persuade him to wear an orange one) and Percy was wearing an old orange one that was stretched too tight across his broad chest and shoulders. He took training seriously and had continued to bulk out through college; he didn't look like some steroid-fuelled meathead by any means but he was made up of a good portion of solid, well-used muscle.

Nico still reminded Rachel of a toothpick she could snap between finger and thumb but she had to admit that he had changed considerably in a physical sense from when she had first met him. He was taller for one thing; he'd actually overtaken Percy by around an inch, much to his delight.

As skinny as he was, she could still see taut muscles flashing through the sheen of swear on his arms. The muscle was as a result of persistent training and repeated sword work out of necessity more than anything; Nico was the kind to sit on her couch devouring an entire box of Krispy Kremes while she killed herself on the StairMaster and she wasn't sure the word 'workout' had penetrated his vocabulary ever. His exercise came from kill or be killed situations and not pumping iron.

His dark hair remained as unruly as ever but he had let it grow considerably longer; it was currently secured by a rubber band in a stubby ponytail about an inch long.

She watched as Percy and Nico wordlessly slammed back-to-back, prowling round in a slow circle as Clarisse and Justin both moved separate ways to attack their flanks.

Clarisse feinted forward with her sword arm towards Nico but at the last minute brought her shield into play, swiping it upwards towards Nico's chin. Nico twisted and ducked under the blow; his sword flashed and the blade caught Clarisse in the exposed crook of her forearm above the toughened leather arm guard.

She hissed and fell back and Rachel saw blood drip onto the sand as Clarisse wobbled on her feet slightly, the effect of Stygian iron obviously fazing her for a second. Nico smirked at her, spun and swept his leg low, taking her feet out from under her.

Clarisse went down with all the delicacy of a couple of tons of bricks; even from halfway across the arena Rachel could hear Clarisse's strangled wheezing as she struggled to refill lungs that had had the air knocked out of them.

Nico turned, his lack of bulk making him incredibly quick especially as he was fighting without a shield (Justin had sent it flying across the arena to concuss a twelve-year-old earlier) but Percy was already taking care of it.

Riptide flashed and Justin's sword went sailing out of his grasp and Percy switched to using his shield, slamming the edge of it into Justin's gut. When the redhead doubled over Percy placed Riptide against the back of his head with just enough pressure to leave a mark.

The watching crowd went wild and Rachel fought to supress a grin. It wouldn't do for the Oracle to start taking sides but of course she'd been team Percy-Nico for the whole fight.

However, it turned out the fight wasn't yet over; Clarisse had finally got her breath back and charged at Percy like a bull, a loud war cry ripping through the arena as sparks of red began to flare off her skin. Even after all these years, Ares was clearly not happy with having his children bested, especially not in a fight with a son of Poseidon. The Blessing began to overtake her body as she tackled Percy bodily.

Percy's feet left the ground as she slammed into him like a linebacker and he was catapulted through the air, landing facedown with a mouthful of sand. His head rang from the impact; he'd lost his shield in the fall but had kept hold of Riptide. Before he could really gather his wits Clarisse was standing over him, her sword gone and replaced by her signature electric spear, which was crackling with stored power.

Percy yelped and did a backwards roll as she stabbed at him, managing to swipe the point away with Riptide as Clarisse went in for another go.

"Hey! Swords only!" Nico growled, raising a hand. The ground trembled; the fleeting remnants of ice cubes in the pitcher rattled and clinked as both of the glasses fell over. Stalagmites of pure obsidian sprang from the ground ten feet high all around Clarisse like the bars of a cage, trapping her and sucking away the electricity from her spear and the red sparks from her body.

* * *

The miniature earthquake had caused some cries of fear from the watching crowd but Annabeth barely blinked, righting the fallen glasses and pouring the last of the pitcher equally into of them. She glanced up when she was done and caught a flash of green smoke curling out from Rachel's nose.

Annabeth snorted tiredly. "Great, another prophecy. Just what we needed," she muttered to herself, reluctantly swinging her legs around so that she was sitting up and facing Rachel. "Just when I thought there could be _one_ normal summer…"

Rachel was sat bolt upright in the chair. Suddenly, her right hand was flashing and darting so fast that Annabeth could barely see it move; she was scribbling down Greek onto her sketchpad without even looking. Finally she came to the bottom of the page and stopped, letting out a long breath and leaning back on her chair. The pencil fell to the ground.

The Oracle put her hand to her head and took off her sunglasses, rubbing at her aching head. "How long was I out for?" she asked. "What did I say? Who's got to go to their doom this time?"

"You didn't say anything," Annabeth said interestedly. "You wrote something down, though. Have you ever done that before?"

Rachel blinked down at her sketchpad; the hasty outline of Nico fighting had been scrawled over with Ancient Greek. "Huh. Nope, that's never happened before," she said. "I thought I was used to the Oracle's tricks by now. Thought I'd seen them all."

"Do you know what it says?" Annabeth asked.

Rachel squinted at it and wrinkled her nose. "Nope," she said, handing Annabeth the sketchpad. "You translate. It's all Greek to me."

"You'd think by now you'd have picked up just the basics," Annabeth muttered, taking the sketchpad and frowning at it.

"Hey, when was the last time you were vacation in Europe and you had to speak Ancient Greek?" Rachel scoffed. "The Oracle speaks English, normally. It hardly ever comes up."

Annabeth sighed and shook her head, looping hair behind her ear as she worked on the translation. When she was done she closed her eyes, took her sunglasses off and rubbed a hand across her face.

"Nico," she said quietly. "It's about Nico." She let a confused look rove over Nico before getting up and walking out of the arena, the sketchbook clutched in one hand and the other balled into a nervous fist.

"Hey, wait for me!" Rachel yelped, scrambling to get up. Sand filled her sandals as she ran after Annabeth and burned the soles of her feet as she left the arena.


	2. Chapter 2

**Another week, another chapter. I surprise myself sometimes. Heh. Enjoy, or do not. That is your prerogative.**

**Marzipan.****  
**

* * *

"Fight like a man, Jackson!" Clarisse bellowed from inside the cage, her voice more than drowning out what had just occurred between Rachel and Annabeth.

"That's cheating!" someone in the crowd yelled, booing loudly at Nico's intervention. The rest of the new Ares and Nemesis campers quickly joined them, showing their dissent, as did some of the other braver-looking kids. Someone wadded up a sheet of paper and tossed it at Nico; taking their cue from this someone else threw an empty, crumpled can of Coke.

Clarisse snarled, throwing her spear between the pillars of volcanic rock. The newbs were only just in time with their scrambling to avoid being impaled about five deep by it. The spear stuck, quivering, in the wooden border around the edge of the arena.

"Playing fair only works until it gets you killed because your opponent doesn't abide by your precious moral code," she spat at the recruits. "Remember that! It might be your most important lesson so far. You know who fights _predictably_? The Romans. Drills and legions only get you so far. Nothing beats a Greek frenzy. As none of you are at Camp Jupiter I'm assuming that you're _Greek._ I cheated first, remember?"

The dissent calmed down slightly but some of the campers who already had a bead or two around their necks, especially those from the Ares cabin, weren't to be cowed as easily as the newbies. They still looked mutinous, muttering at the entrapped Clarisse and glaring daggers at Nico.

"Nico!" Percy yelled suddenly.

Nico spun to find Justin back on his feet; Justin was carrying a bullwhip in his hand and the air cracked as he lashed out with it, entangling it around Nico's sword arm and yanking hard. Nico bit the sand violently, his fingers spasming from the stranglehold on his wrist and his sword falling limply from his hand.

Justin grinned at him. "Hey, if you're going to cheat I'm going to cheat," he said. "Gotta keep things balanced."

Nico rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. You're practically Lady fucking Justice," he bit out good naturedly. "Can I have my arm back now?"

"You gonna release my partner?" Justin countered with, keeping the whip taut.

Nico opened his mouth to tell him to go roll naked in honey and sit on an anthill when a geyser suddenly erupted underneath Justin, blasting him up into the air and halfway across the arena, limbs flailing.

Nico used his now-free hand to wipe the spray from his face and looked up at Percy, who was blocking out the sun and grinning lopsidedly at him. His hand was extended to help his cousin up.

"You really bring out the worst in me," Percy said as he hauled Nico to his feet. "Encouraging me to cheat. Nice job with the cage by the way."

"Nice job with the jet washing," Nico replied. "I think that's victory us?"

Percy glanced over his shoulder at Clarisse to confirm this and she shook her head and sighed. "Victory's yours," she muttered reluctantly. "Fine. You win. But in the rematch? I'm gonna mop the floor with you. Now, how about you let a girl out and offer to buy the losers a beer?"

"Shouldn't the losers by the winners a beer?" Percy asked as Nico let the black rock sink back into the sand as if it had never been there.

"Dream on," Clarisse said. She walked over to where her spear was embedded, shoving campers aside who weren't quick enough to move. She wrenched her spear free and shrunk it back into its steal mode. "It's not like you won fair and square."

Percy grinned at her. Clarisse had come a long way since they were both teenagers in terms of her personality — they all had. Age had prevented her from seeing things in the black and white manner she had used to when they had been at Camp together. It had also taught her to curb her temper when the situation called for it as well as mellowing her attitude to losing — she now saw a strength in admitting when she had been beaten rather than denying a loss.

"Battle training 101," Justin said, staggering back towards the spectators and shoving back sopping wet hair. He wrung out his t-shirt, too. "After never say you'll never cheat, try not to piss of sons of Poseidon. I think I just got a free colonic."

"It wasn't free," Percy replied with a grin, reaching forward to shake Justin's hand. "Clarisse has just volunteered you to buy the first round."

Justin groaned. "Fine, but we're going to this dump I know where they charge five bucks a pitcher."

"Don't look at me," Clarisse said. "I said nothing." She turned to the crowd which had gathered to watch the show. "DISMISSED!" she barked. "Tomorrow, you try some of that out for yourself. Go and get ready for dinner and the campfire."

"Where're Rachel and Annabeth?" Nico asked suddenly as he sheathed his sword.

Percy looked over to their empty little spot of shade and frowned. "I don't know," he said, mildly perplexed. Then he shrugged. "Bathroom? They won't have gone far." He mopped his face on his t-shirt and walked over to the edge of the arena, tossing a bottle of water each to Justin, Clarisse and Nico from an ice bucket.

Nico watched Percy. He seemed oblivious to the gawking going on amongst Campers old and new as he walked towards them to get the water but Nico could see them whispering and nudging each other, probably recounting the tales they'd heard of the _famous_ son of Poseidon.

Hanging out with Percy in the demigod world was kind of like hanging out with a celebrity; he always got bumped down to the nobody sidekick. Much like when he was eating in some fancy ass restaurant with Rachel. Maître d's looked at him the same way demigods did sometimes — like he was something they could have scraped off their shoe.

Of course, it was for very different reasons; with maître d's, it was more because he probably looked like some kind of street trash Rachel had scooped up off the sidewalk on the way in and decided to treat to a free meal. He could accept that because, frankly, they were snooty assholes and fuck them if they didn't like the fact that his Metallica t-shirt had a hole in it and they felt that it was _lowering the tone_.e

With demigods, though, even after the wars the House of Hades still had a long way to go to rebuild its reputation. The fact that he had a cabin at Camp and that there was a throne on Olympus dedicated to his father meant little, apparently, and demigods were slow to change their perceptions of him. People still associated him with death and shunned him, resented him, probably out of some deep-rooted fear more than anything else.

They seemed to think he was the grim reaper and, as he liked being left alone, he did little to debase the notion. Let people think he was the weird kid of death and make fun of him behind his back. He barely cared anymore. He wasn't a kid anymore and he knew that other people's opinion meant jack.

Although it was just… sometimes, he wondered why Percy got to be the lovable rouge, the hero, even though he had practically drowned Justin, whereas he made one little show of Underworld power and the whole crowd treated him like he was some kind of pantomime villain. The bad guy. Like he was twiddling a handlebar moustache and tying a helpless (ha!) Clarisse to some train tracks.

Nico rolled his eyes and tore them away from Percy's adoring fans; he knew from experience that it was never a happy avenue to explore. Instead, he took a long gulp of water, relishing the feeling in his parched throat.

Percy was busy shaking hands with Justin again, then Clarisse. "Nice fight," he said. "I thought you almost had us there."

"Yeah, yeah. And we _did_ almost have you, kelp head," Clarisse growled. "Next time, you're toast. Got it?" She turned to the campers. "Didn't you hear me? Get gone!" She jerked her thumb over her shoulder for emphasis and the remaining campers filtered out.

Percy put a hand to his stomach. "Toast… Is anyone else starving?" he asked.

Justin nodded. "Oh yeah. I've gotta catch a shower before we eat… although you've done a pretty good job already, Percy."

"I second that," Clarisse said, raking back a strand of hair that was slicked to her cheek. "Catch you guys later." She left with Justin.

Percy and Nico were left alone in the arena.

"We kicked ass," Percy said. "How's the arm?"

Nico looked down at his forearm where a welt was rising from the whip and shrugged. It stung and throbbed but some nectar later would pretty much take care of it. "I'll live. Hey, random question. Do you really not notice how famous you are with the new brats? You're like a legend to them but you act like you don't notice."

Percy frowned and then snorted with laughter. "Seriously?"

"Never mind," Nico said dryly. "Shower?"

"Gods yes," Percy said, opening his bottle of water and tipping the last half over Nico's head. "Better?"

Nico sputtered and spat water out, gasping. "I'm writing this stuff down, you know," he said. "Pay back is a bitch. Just ask Justin."

"Yeah yeah," Percy said, breaking into a sudden sprint. "Beat you back to the cabins!" He left the arena at full pelt, with Nico trying his hardest to keep on his heels.

* * *

"What _about_ Nico?" Rachel demanded of Annabeth, grabbing the blonde's arm.

Annabeth had just run off without saying anything. She'd been walking furiously this entire time and Rachel had had to struggle to keep up. Annabeth had finally come to a stop at the canoe lake and stood there staring out over the water.

"Why run off like that?" Rachel pursued. "You're kind of scaring me."

Annabeth continued glaring at the lake, obviously conflicted. Rachel had no idea what was wrong with her still and she stumbled back when Annabeth shook her arm out of Rachel's grasp.

Annabeth retrieved a stub of pencil from the pocket of her cut-off jeans and flipped to a blank page in Rachel's sketchbook and, hesitantly and haltingly, scribbled out the translation there. When she was done she tore it out and handed it to Rachel, who started to read it to herself.

"I don't think I can say it out loud," Annabeth said, swallowing and chewing on her nub of pencil.

_When sons of Hades come of age_

_They must learn to yoke their rage_

_Hades' line wields great might_

_But its use in wrath is humanity's blight._

_The time will come when they must choose_

_To live a virtuous life or to lose_

_to anger all they know_

_And do naught but cause widespread woe._

_Their choice will lead them one of two ways:_

_The world they will either raise or raze._

Rachel read it through a few times and then cocked an eyebrow at Annabeth. "This rhymes," she said. "Did you translate this from _Ancient Greek to English _in a way that made it rhyme?"

"Prophecies are meant to rhyme," Annabeth admitted sheepishly. "If it had been in English it would have rhymed so… I felt like I should make it rhyme. But that's not the point. Did you _read _it?"

"Your brain is a scary place. Super computer scary," Rachel said. Then she sighed. "I read it," she confirmed.

It was unlike any of the Oracle's messages she had seen or heard before. Instead of the ambiguity of prophecy there was only stark warning. That wasn't generally how the Oracle operated; the spirit tended to always leave wiggle room.

Then again, perhaps the warning was so clear because the Oracle had already felt the wrath of Hades and warning people about it was important to the spirit. The whole thing left little doubt that Nico (who else _could _it be?) could wind up in some serious trouble if he didn't learn to control his powers.

She shuddered despite the heat. World War II had been the reason the Big Three had made the pact not to procreate with mortals anymore. The global suffering and death caused by the conflict had resulted in them deciding not to sire anymore children as powerful as those who had been involved in the war.

You didn't need an A+ in European History to guess which side Hades' kids had been on during World War II and Nico… well, he was a child of Hades whether he liked it or not. Surely he had the same potential in him as any of the despots of the Axis did? The way he had looked just now when he'd summoned Clarisse's cage came back to haunt her, that mania in his eyes that left him teetering on the cusp between genius and insanity…

Could it really be?

"We can't _tell_ him," Rachel said quickly. "If he thinks he's about to raze the entire world then only the gods know what he'll do. He'll fall apart. He spirals, you know that. If we tell him he's just going to end up hating himself. We might just be pushing him into making it come true."

Annabeth let out a shaky breath. "Really? You don't want to tell him? What if we don't and he doesn't learn to keep his anger in check and he goes nuclear?"

"He won't," Rachel said fiercely, suddenly aware that she was gripping the sketchpad so hard she was shaking. She suddenly wanted to tear the thing into tiny pieces of confetti and scatter it to the four winds, pretend it hadn't happened, pretend that it might not be true. "He won't because we won't let him. _I _won't let him."

Annabeth hesitated, uncertainty crossing her face. "It's weird. On one hand I feel like this prophecy was meant for ten-year-old Nico, the one who was so consumed with his grudge against Percy after Bianca and his hatred that he saw nothing else. On the other hand… he's not the same person anymore and I know that. He's different, and it's hard to imagine that he has the potential to do something like this, but aren't you even a little bit worried that a tiny part of that kid is still in him waiting to get out?"

Rachel's nostrils flared. "Then we put that little kid in a corner and leave it there and tell child services to get lost if they come knocking," she said determinedly. "Whatever it takes."

Grey, uncertain eyes met green, determined ones and they were locked in a staring contest for a minute. Annabeth was the first to look away.

"Fine. We don't tell him," she said. "_Yet. _If the situation arises where he needs to know this then we tell him everything. Okay? And we can't tell Chiron. If he thinks there's even the slightest danger of another freaking World War then…"

"Lotus Casino," Rachel said darkly. Her thoughts were confirmed by Annabeth's nod.

Chiron was very fair and balanced as well as being incredibly kind. However, he was also very wise and charged with leading a summer camp full of demigods who were burdened with protecting the world if it needed it. His duty to protect the world and prevent war had resulted in him keeping the Roman camp secret for the best part of a century and a half, even if it was at the gods' behest.

To him, saving the lives of many demigods and upholding the safety, security and stability of the West was more important than any one demigod. Which was an admirable attitude, but… this was _Nico._

And if Chiron knew that Nico would pose a threat, both Annabeth and Rachel had apparently come to the same conclusion: Chiron probably wouldn't hesitate to lock Nico in the Lotus Casino so that he never became the kind of person the Oracle had warned about. Even if there was only the slightest indication that he might.

"So… what now?" Rachel asked.

Annabeth shrugged. "We just be his friend," she said. "The way he is right now I don't think he's going to be a danger to anyone. We just need him to stay that way."

Rachel nodded. "Easy," she said. She closed the sketchbook over the Oracle's warning and tried to put it out of mind. "I'm not going to let him be some kind of monster. He won't be."

Annabeth gave a sad smile. "I know. Nor will I. Let's just hope that's enough, huh?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Third chapter in three weeks. Call me butter, ladies and gentlemen, because I'm on a roll! With posting. Whether the quality deserves that comment is another matter but with frequency... I win XD And for anyone who knows me, you'll know that that's not something that I say that often.****  
**

**New chapter. Enjoy, or do not. There is no try.  
**

* * *

Nico woke and stretched, the sound of a conch horn having roused him from a deep sleep.

Ugh.

He rubbed his eyes. Not only did coming back to Camp mean that he had to 'help out' (it was his _duty _to train new demigods, apparently, which was bullshit because it had been no one's _duty _to train him) but it also meant unbearably early mornings. Both factors colluded to make him hate staying at Camp, but Percy and Annabeth had been content to stay rather than going back to New York, so…

Gods, he hated mornings. They were made of pure evil and if there was anything that he knew it was pure evil.

His head was fuzzy from the beer last night and the lack of caffeine in his veins. Before he could even fully form the thought, a skeleton in a barista's apron formed and walked over to the bed, placing a silver tray with a double espresso on it onto his nightstand.

Nico reached for the cup greedily and the skeleton dissolved into individual bones, adding to the skeletal detritus already littering the floor. The apron hovered in midair for a split second before crumpling on top of the pile.

Nico took a deep sniff over the coffee before taking the first sip and savouring the taste for a couple of minutes. Then he tossed the rest of it back and threw the bedclothes off. His stomach grumbled at him as he searched for his jeans. He was starving, which was weird for him, but the conch horn meant breakfast so at least that was one issue that would get fixed. He was sure getting up early gave him an appetite, which was another reason to hate it.

Food was such a pain in the ass.

He dressed quickly, pausing as he left to take an elastic band to his hair and then opening the door.

When he got outside he blinked in shock. His entire cabin was covered in toilet paper which had been stained rainbow, firmly leaving the prints of the Iris cabin all over it. The tripwire strung low across the threshold, however, was a different matter and Nico barely managed to avoid it. He looked up to see a big red mop bucket filled with something thick and gelatinous that was definitely more than mop water which would have doused him had he set the trap off.

Trip wires were probably an Ares cabin thing, or maybe it had been an effort on the part of the Athena cabin. He caught the smell of whatever was in the bucket and gagged, then changed his mind — a trap this disgusting was far from the elegance the Athena cabin would boast of. It had to have been the doing of Ares kids.

He set his jaw and felt rage bubble inside him. How _dare _anyone do this to his cabin? He balled his fists and stepped forward. Then he heard a click.

Out of nowhere on the stoop of his cabin a round disc of celestial bronze had appeared and he was standing right in the middle of it. He had clearly broken some kind of concealment spell (the Hecate cabin was also clearly in on this) and he quickly stepped forwards, trying to get off it before another trap was set off.

He wasn't quick enough, however, and the disc was whisked upwards, catching his heels and sending him tumbling off the stoop and into the dirt, bypassing the steps entirely. He spat a curse and rolled over onto his back, looking up at the enlarged set of weighing scales set up in front of his cabin, which had also clearly been concealed until he had triggered the trap.

So, the Nemesis kids too, huh?

One of the scalepans had been on the stoop and the other had been waiting in midair with the scales perfectly balanced. When Nico had stepped on the scalepan on the stoop he had triggered something which had dropped weight into the scalepan poised in midair, which had resulted in the scalepan he was standing on shooting upwards as the side with the weight hit the floor. If he hadn't jumped off only the gods knew how far he'd have been catapulted.

Hanging from the scales was a bedsheet which had been crudely emblazoned with the word 'CHEATER'. It also bore a picture of the grim reaper wearing a pink tutu and ballet pumps instead of his black robe.

He let out a snarl of anger and got to his feet, dusting himself off with slow, deliberate strokes. He heard mocking laughter and whirled, seeing no one there. The thought of the Hecate kids hiding his tormentors behind a veil made him so mad he barely even thought about it; with a stomp of his foot he set the earth trembling and a rent in the ground cracked open with a low moan and the sound of rock and dirt skittering down into the abyss. The crack began heading towards where he'd heard the laughter, which soon turned to screams.

The veil dropped and kids scattered in all directions away from his new pet faultline. He felt his mouth twist into a grin as he watched them run and reached out a hand towards them, but someone came up behind him and yanked gently on his ponytail.

He spun quickly and whoever was behind him was left holding the elastic band complete with a few ripped out dark hairs. His hair fell across his face and he peered through it, making no move to try and shift it out of the way. He wanted to look as frightening as possible and leave whoever it was wishing they'd never been born.

"Gods, Nico. We really need to work on your morning attitude before coffee."

"I've _had _coffee," Nico growled, snatching the elastic band from Rachel's hand and yanking his hair back into it.

Rachel made no reaction outwardly, although inwardly she shivered as a dark, thunderous look crossed Nico's face. He finished tying his hair back and scowled at her.

"What do you want?" he demanded, folding his arms. "I'm busy. I've got to go and create a little paperwork for my father by killing some campers."

"Calm down, Nico," Rachel said, her eyes clouding with concern as she took in the ragged breathing and the tendons standing out in his neck. He was bleeding from his lip and didn't appear to know it. Blood had been staining his teeth when he had twisted his face into that manic grin. "They're just kids."

"They _attacked _me!" Nico howled in outrage, jabbing his finger in the direction of the departed campers. "And look at my cabin!" He noticed for the first time that it had been decorated with all types of climbing flowers on top of all the other defacements. Demeter kids. Great.

"Come on, Nico. It was just a joke," Rachel said in a placatory voice. "They're young. They're having fun. When I was here, cabins used to play practical jokes on each other all the time."

"Some fun," Nico spat, clearly still seething. His fists were balled so hard the blood had rushed from his knuckles, leaving them as white as bone. "Those scales could have broken my _neck_ to start with."

His head pounded with rage and he longed to just start tearing things apart, either with his own hands or using the power of the Underworld. The satisfaction of seeing things around him crumble and fall would go some way to negating this thirst of vengeance.

Rachel quirked an eyebrow and pointed to a place several feet away. "I guess you can't see the net they laid out to _catch_ you?"

Nico squinted at where Rachel was pointing. If he let his eyes unfocus and his attention wander he could almost make out a taut net hiding under a Hecate cabin veil that would have prevented him from any serious injury had he not realised the trap was there in time.

"Oh, I could have landed anywhere," Nico said, although he gradually relaxed his hands. "What did they do, _guess_ where to string my safety net?"

Rachel winced. "I think… some calculations to do with physics and trajectories were probably used…"

"Athena kids," Nico muttered darkly. "Is there anyone in his place who didn't want to see me humiliated?"

He looked angrily at the bedsheet and their mockery of death, but Rachel could also see a haunted sadness behind his eyes also.

"They don't respect me or my father," Nico said, his shoulders sagging as the fight left him. "They just…"

"They're _scared _of you, idiot," Rachel said, unable to keep a small snort of laughter back. "Don't you get it? They're freaking terrified that the son of Hades is going to come and reap them in their sleep and you know how they deal with it? By making fun of you. Mocking you. It just makes you more human and easier to deal with. Less scary. Why do you think people use gallows humour? They make fun of death so that the knowledge that it's coming doesn't feel so heavy."

"Oh, I forgot about all those psychology classes," Nico said, wrinkling his nose in disgust. "I bet your dad is thrilled that that's what you spent your college fund on. I mean, he could have bought a mid-sized nation with it and you just fritter it away on Psych 101."

"Don't take this out on me," Rachel snapped before she could stop herself and rein in her anger.

Rachel had to keep reminding herself of what the Oracle had warned of, that if she couldn't help Nico with his anger issues Bad Things were going to happen, but it was _hard. _He was Nico, for crying out loud. What was there that could possibly happen to him to turn him into some kind of world-destroying monster? And when the Nico she knew got snarky with her, she tried to give as good as she got. That was sort of their dynamic; it was the way they ticked.

Nico shook his head, suddenly looking incredibly world weary. "I'm not. Sorry," he said tiredly. "But come on, Rachel, that's bullshit and you know it. _Maybe_ they are scared but it's not of me, it's of death. All mortals are scared of death. We're _mortal. _It comes with the territory. That's not new. But this is because I used my powers to trap Clarisse and win over the Ares and Nemesis cabins. They can't stand that and so they're trying to punish me. They're not _scared_ of me. They just hate me for being so different. Just like they hate my father."

"They don't—"

"They don't hate me?" Nico said, laughing hollowly. "Come on, Rachel. I thought you were a better liar than that. They hate me. Period."

Rachel pressed her lips together in a thin line, trying to figure out a way to counter that, but she wasn't sure she could. Her ramblings about being scared hadn't come from a psych class they'd come from her own assumptions. To make herself feel better, she had dealt with the fact that everyone in the demigod world avoided _her_ because they were scared of her. She supposed it was easier to let herself believe that they were scared of her rather than feeling outright animosity for her.

But it made sense now, thinking about it. If you could get past the fact that she was an heiress and had an intimate acquaintance with Page 6, which was enough reason for many people who didn't know her not to like her, then there was always the Oracle thing.

She got to sit in the Big House and make big decisions like who to send on quests, which almost literally gave her the power of life over death, especially when the prophecies applied to specific demigods. What was more, she didn't even got to war herself, just asked others to.

Could it be that demigods weren't scared of her but really just disliked her, the way Nico assumed was the case?

Almost as if he had deduced what she was thinking from her silence, Nico continued, "And it isn't even fair because it's not like they hate equally. Look at the Poseidon cabin. Do you see any booby traps laid out for Percy after he blasted Justin? No. They _love _Percy. He's the big hero. I'm just some freak whose father lives in the Underworld and it doesn't even matter that he has a throne on Olympus and I have a cabin here. They're never going to change their attitudes towards me, are they? I am what I am and it _sucks._"

Nico sat down hard on the steps up to his cabin and stared at the crack in the ground he had just created. He suddenly wanted to let the whole stupid Camp fall into it, and Long Island too by extension if he had to. _Then _maybe Hades might get some respect; _then _maybe he'd feel like a demigod his father could be proud of rather than some loser who the Ares cabin thought it was funny to try and douse in slop.

Rachel walked over and sat down next to him, bumping him with his shoulder until he muttered a curse word at her and shifted over enough to give her sufficient space to sit comfortably.

"Maybe… maybe you can change that," she said slowly. If Nico could somehow change the overwhelming attitude that demigods had towards him then maybe he'd have less to be resentful about.

Rachel could feel the straws she was clutching at slipping through her fingers but she had promised Annabeth that she was going to help Nico and godsbedamned she was going to do it. Also, maybe this was a way to help her too. If people stopped seeing her as just a harbinger of death and destruction then maybe they'd stop avoiding her like she was made of C4 bricks.

"How?" Nico said bitterly. "By duly coming back here against my will all the freaking time and doing them a favour by helping them learn how to fight so they can protect themselves? Wow, what a great idea. Maybe I could show off my dazzling fighting skills to them, show them all my demigod powers? Because that worked so well yesterday, huh?"

Rachel swallowed a retort, which was easier than usual because of the rapidly-forming idea in her head taking up most of the brainpower she had to expend. "Come with me," Rachel said, standing up and dragging a reluctant Nico to his feet. "It's time for breakfast. And then we're going to get Chiron to organise a little field trip."


	4. Chapter 4

**Slightly late, I know, but I had a migraine yesterday that prevented me from posting. So sorry about that.**

**I tried for more humour in this chapter but I don't know how well it worked. Hmm. Well, at least I tried (although I generally hate those participation awards because anyone can participate). **

**Marz.**

* * *

"This is a bad idea," Nico muttered into his third cup of coffee. All around him on the top table of the dining pavilion, where he, Percy, Rachel, Annabeth, Clarisse, Justin, Chiron and Mr D were sitting, people were tucking into food. However, he was still angry enough to want to avoid it despite how hungry he had felt earlier. Any kind of strong emotion he felt played havoc with his appetite.

He could feel his eyes smouldering over the top of his coffee cup at the assembled crowd below the top table and wondered idly if he was anywhere near close to the purple flames that sometimes appeared behind his father's eyes when he got really pissed.

Now _that _would be a cool look.

It might explain the relative quiet of the dining pavilion as the campers ate; normally, the place was alive and bustling but aside from the prayers to their parents when they had scraped a portion of their meal into the flames conversation was incredibly subdued.

The hush over the place was akin to being in a cathedral except instead of staring at arches and flying buttresses spanning overhead, the campers were looking at him with that same muted awe. Although granted probably with more fear than a cathedral would warrant, even for demigod children of pagan deities.

Well, good. That was what they got for screwing with him.

Rachel, who was sitting next to him and spreading marmalade on whole-wheat toast, shook her head. "Nope. It's genius," she said airily. "Now will you please stop looking at them like they're gazelles and you're a leopard trying to pick the juiciest one? You're scaring the crap out of them."

"Genius? Uh-huh," Nico said dryly. "Sure it is. I've heard that one from you before. And believe me, I would not want to eat any of them. Child germs. No thanks."

Rachel snorted exasperatedly. "Nico, you're eighteen. According to the State of New York, _you _werea minor this time last year. And you're barely older than half the counsellors."

"Not according to my birth certificate," Nico muttered. He wrinkled his nose in disgust, pressing the hot ceramic of his mug into the split in his lip and allowing the burning pain. "Still, I think they'd taste bad," he concluded.

Rachel's reply was cut off when Chiron rose to his hooves out of his wheelchair and surveyed the whole pavilion. He hardly had to wait for silence; the thick fog of nervousness and tension that had prevailed since Nico had walked in with Rachel had suppressed the usual hubbub of breakfast. "After breakfast, all but the head counsellors of the cabins are to assume their normal, daily duties," Chiron said. "If the counsellors could see me at this table as soon as they have finished breakfast I would appreciate it."

It wasn't long before breakfast was over and the dining pavilion cleared of everyone but Chiron, Rachel, Nico and the head counsellors. Percy had given Nico a quizzical look on the way out and looked like he might stay, but Annabeth had dragged him out by the arm.

Nico kind of wished he had stayed. He couldn't help but feel that what was to come would be a lot easier if Percy were here. The campers _liked _Percy after all. They'd listen to him.

Nico kept his eyes on the tablecloth, trying to betray as few of his feelings as possible with his expression. The campers probably thought that he had told on them and that they were there to get in trouble. It wasn't true; he would never leave it to Chiron to fix his problems. Revenge was a personal thing. Still, he wouldn't be surprised if the campers thought he had tattled and had been a big baby by running crying to Chiron. They didn't think much of him, that was clear.

Chiron cleared his throat. "As you know, we have a range of alumni from this Camp who visit during the summer months to teach the younger generations — you," he began. "There are none better qualified who are alive today to do so, not after the battles they have seen. Our training thus far has focussed mostly on the physical: battle tactics or battle plans or helping you all to make the best use of your talents. It has been brought to my attention that I fear we have neglected the most important aspect of all: exercising the mind.

"Education is an important part of battle readiness but this is not limited to just learning about the enemies you will face. That is the easy part, in a way. The hardest part is learning about what you are fighting _for. _Now, you may all be looking at me and thinking that you well _know _what you are fighting for, but I hazard a guess that most of you are wrong. You think you fight for the glory of your godly parent, to protect the whole of Olympus, and yes, you would be right to a point. However, you also fight to protect the ideals of Olympus itself, not just its physical location but what it stands for. In the new order forged after the Second Titan War, those ideals and principals include tolerance and understanding at a level which we are all unused. That is why today you will all accompany Nico di Angelo, the only living child of Hades, and our Oracle, Rachel Dare, on a field trip."

There were general mutterings of dissent, murmured protestations and grumblings from the assembled teenagers. Many scowled; Nico was suddenly looking at a sea of folded arms and hard, piercing glares when he looked up for the first time. They didn't want to go anywhere with him or learn anything from him, obviously.

Sighing, he stood. He still thought that it was a bad idea but he had to at least try to sell it now it had got this far. "I am who I am," he said solemnly, looking back impassively at all those who were meeting his eye and making a good few of them reconsider. "I am a child of Hades. A son of the underworld. You all think you understand what it means but you _don't_, that much is clear. Today will be a chance to widen your narrow little minds."

"Where are we going?" a female voice asked from near the back of the crowd.

The corners of Nico's mouth tugged up into a grin and his eyes lit up. "We're all going to take a little trip to Hades," he said, the grin widening as he saw some campers go grey in the face at the thought of it. "My home."

Rachel was already in position to steady him when they reappeared in the Underworld. How she'd manage to shift so fast after shadow travelling he had no idea but he was grateful. It would look ridiculous if he'd fallen face first into the dirt from exhaustion. She grabbed his elbow and held him upright as he swayed from the exertion of travelling so many people.

The counsellors, however, had fared much worse than him (aside from Lucille from the Nyx cabin, for whom shadow travel was par for the course) and had reacted badly to it. Several sat down hard on their butts on rematerialising and others were bent double with their hands on their knees. He didn't think that any of them noticed Rachel's momentary act of support.

Nico took a deep breath and managed to dial down the ringing of exhaustion in his ears. "No one said you could just sit around," he said harshly. "You're here for a reason."

There was grumbling a muttered curses but everyone made it to their feet again eventually, despite how pale some of them still looked.

"This way," Nico said, turning on his heel and marching away, not looking back to check to see if he was being followed as Rachel fell into step beside him. If they wanted to make it back to Camp they'd stick close. There were few other ways out of the Underworld.

A deep, booming bark elicited yelps of fear from behind him; he supposed that meant that they were following orders and keeping close. He rounded a corner and came to a halt in front of the gates to his father's realm and immediately was faced with Cerberus on guard.

The long lines of dead people choosing either EZ Death or Attendant on Duty never changed. People kept dying, after all. The lines were just as long now as they would always be. Nico sneaked a glance back at the head counsellors, who looked shocked to see the sheer amount of dead people spread out before them.

"These are my subjects," Nico said to no one in particular, although he made sure his voice was heard.

The milling ghosts immediately went silent, a hush rippling backwards through the crowd like a wave. They all turned to face him, any movement in the lines suspended.

"As you were," Nico told the ghosts. The lines started slowly shuffling forward again and the unnatural stillness that had befallen the vast cavern was broken. "I hear them all," Nico continued, turning to the campers. "Each one of them, every day." He tapped his temple. "They're all in here."

"You hear _every _dead person?" Ray of the Apollo cabin asked, his voice dripping with scorn. He was one of the people clearly still suffering from the shadow travelling, probably amplified because he had been cut off from the sunlight. It didn't stop him, however, from sneering at Nico. "Seriously, you expect us to believe that? Every single one of them? Look how many there are. There's no way one person could hear all of that."

Ray stopped speaking but Nico thought that he heard the unsaid ending to the sentence: "Without going mad."

Maybe he was mad, then. It would probably explain a lot. No one seemed to understand how it felt to be so connected to death and the dead all the time. Not even Hazel did, as her powers were derived mostly from their father's facet as the god of wealth and all things underground rather than the death side of things.

"_All _of them," Nico repeated, his voice dangerous. It was like Ray was accusing him of lying about it. Why would he do that? Why would he pretend to be attuned to every dead person? It wasn't something that was cool to brag about, like Percy's ocean-fu powers or Jason and his lightning. It wasn't something that made people look up to him — it was something that downright terrified them. Why would he lie and make it worse than people already assumed it was?

Nico whirled around and started pointing towards the eerie crowd, picking out individual ghosts. "Look. Sonia Sotomo. She was twenty-six. Killed in a hit and run. Connor Noble, ten. Leukaemia. Michelle Ramirez, fifty-seven. Heart attack. Harry Spittle, forty-one. Thought he could get away without dropping money on malaria medication for his once-in-a-lifetime African safari. Jennifer Taylor, eighteen, haemorrhaged during childbirth. She's holding Julia Taylor, precisely forty-three minutes old. She outlived her mother by ten minutes." He turned to Ray, his nostrils flaring. "Satisfied? Or do I need to point out Rita Hapworth over there, 93, who is at the front of that line having had a stroke in her sleep in her Florida condo?"

Ray, already pale, turned positively green. "Grams?" he breathed, emotion choking his voice. The little old lady in question didn't respond to his voice just shuffled on forwards in the line, vanishing as she reached the front.

"She was," Nico said. "And now she's not. She died. Mortals die. We'll _all_ die. And we'll all come here and I will know about it. I know them all."

Rachel squeezed Nico's hand, hoping he'd take it as a warning to stop, but he just wrenched his hand from hers impatiently and folded his arms, jamming his hands under his armpits. He was still glowering at the group but especially at Ray, who was staring intently on the floor with his shoulders hitching oddly every couple of minutes or so as if he were crying.

Rachel bit her lip. Maybe coming down here hadn't been the right thing after all. Maybe it had made everything worse; Nico didn't appear to be very... redemption-receptive right now. And he wasn't endearing himself in the eyes of the campers, either.

"Every single one?" Chloe Adams of the Demeter cabin asked, her voice diminished with awe.

Nico nodded sagely. "Yes. All of them. All the time. That's what I have to live with every day. When you saw me fighting in the arena? I wear hearing them. Which brings me to lesson number one. You see what I'm wearing?" He gestured down to his usual sombre attire. "The black? You all think I'm making a statement. The son of Hades, the emo slash goth, how _original. _No. And it doesn't mean that I'm bad, either. Black does not mean evil. Black is a sign of respect for the dead. Just like you wouldn't turn up to your grandpa's funeral in fluorescent orange so I don't stomp all over the dead people I hear all the time by wearing colours."

Rachel let out the breath that she'd been holding. This was better; this was the human side of Nico that hardly anyone got to see.

"Some of them come to me for help, did you know that?" Nico pressed on. It felt like years of pent up frustration, of people not knowing who he was or what he was about, was finally bursting through. "Do you think the dead want to see me in this season's latest colour palette, disrespecting them? No, they do not. Black is respectful. I respect them. Once upon a time, they were real people. With real family, real friends. They mattered. That _means _something to me, even if it doesn't mean anything to you. They were all someone's grams ones. Mother, father, sister, brother, husband, wife, aunt, uncle, son, daughter. Got it?"

Nico was sure that his eyes were blazing again, piercing the gloom like burning coals, but this time he wasn't angry. There was a passion inside him that he had to let out. This wasn't just about him anymore; it was about his father and the way they thought about him, and most of all it was about the dead people he represented. If he didn't stand up for himself and them, who would?

"Black also helps me blend with the shadows and makes shadow travelling easier," he said. It was like a perpetual motion machine now; he couldn't stop it. "Black represents the primordial. It is the absence of colour and represents potential, something great that's about to be. Plus it gives me a kick ass silhouette and makes sure people know not to fuck with me. Usually. You guys underestimated me."

He got some nods out of the crowd which was good enough for now. He turned around and produced a red rubber ball with a squeaker in it from his pocket, squeezing it twice. The unusual sound pierced what was otherwise near-silence.

Cerberus barked again in triplicate, which boomed off the rocky walls, and came bounding over, soaring over the long lines of the dead awaiting their fate.

Rachel's stomach tugged unpleasantly when she saw Nico's face twist into a satisfied grin at the fear Cerberus' presence was instilling in the counsellors, many of whom had jumped backwards at the enormous flying beast barrelling towards them. Some of them screamed.

At the moment, Nico could go either way. She kept seeing glints of humanity, the Nico that she knew, contrasted with a darker side of him that maybe had always been there and she just hadn't noticed before. Was it only now that she had received the warning that she was realising that it was there.

"Meet Cerberus," Nico said, smiling as the dog wagged his tail and threw himself flat on the floor so Nico could use both hands to scratch behind an ear. "He's another perk of the job."

Nico squeaked the ball again and Cerberus instantly leapt to his feet, bounding around and waiting for Nico to throw the ball. Nico did so after a couple of false starts that had Cerberus half-running after it before coming back when it turned out that Nico hadn't thrown it after all.

The game of fetch went on for another couple of minutes before Nico threw the ball as far and as hard as he could and concentrated hard on shadow travelling the other campers away before Cerberus could return.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter chapter ****chapter ****chapter ****chapter ****chapter ****chapter ****chapter — CHAPTER! (It makes sense if you're singing it to the Batman theme tune — trust me on this, for I are a professional).**

**I decided that I may be able to get this fic finished before Christmas (and the other holidays) are upon us proper. And the best way to do that would be to, er... post chapters. XD Funny that.  
**

**One, maybe two chapters to go after this. We'll see.  
**

**Thank you everyone for being so kind and so wonderful to me, and for reading along with me despite my latent insanity. It is greatly appreciated, even if you're shy and let me know you're alive Out There.  
**

**Marzipan.  
**

* * *

******This fic is for Proud to be Plug, a very dear friend of mine. Originally it was meant to be his Easter prompt fic exchange but it's, uh, late. Which is not my fault, I hasten to add. Just life.**

**The three prompts, which have now all featured as of this chapter, were:**

**Don't drink the water. **

**It's all Greek to me. **

**Black does not mean evil.**

* * *

Rachel was again there to catch him; he hoped he managed to cuff away the trickle of blood he felt oozing from one nostril before the counsellors noticed. His head rang and pounded with exhaustion already but he forced himself to push away from Rachel without more than a second's pause.

No one would respect a weakling.

The pitch darkness of the cave they had reappeared in was broken by large daggers of glowing quartz crystals protruding from the walls and ceiling. The soft, blue glow emitted from the obsidian floor gleam like a freshly-frozen lake and sparkle as if it were sprinkled with glitter. Interspersed between the crystals were patches of luminescent mould and fungi in various hues.

Their breath smoked in front of them and even Nico had to suppress a shiver at the brush of the freezing air.

"It's beautiful," gasped Alyssa of the Aphrodite cabin. Her eyes were wide as she looked around the cavern, its lights glittering in the whites of her eyes.

"Did you think the Underworld couldn't be beautiful?" Nico asked her, a derisive snort curling out of his nose as vapour in the cold air. "Just because there are no sunshine or flowers or pink ruffles or little bunny rabbits you assumed it was ugly? Nothing it ever what it seems. Follow me."

It was such a deeply held belief by those aboveground that Hades was dark, dank, depressing and bleak. Zeus and Thalia got the sky and lightning; he could see why that was cool. Poseidon and Percy got all the oceans and power over water — again, pretty cool. What did he get, though? Shadows and skeletons. Hades had a serious PR problem as a domain and he had no idea why none of his father's children had tried to do anything about it before. It wasn't just a place of death and despair: there was more to it than that.

He beckoned to them and walked forwards through a winding passage that sloped upwards. Soon the thundering of water was heard, drowning out the scuffle of footsteps made uncertain by the gloom.

"Stop," Nico commanded loudly over the noise, turning to face them with his hand raised. "No one get any closer. You'll be in the splash zone."

Behind him fell a sheet of water, crashing and pounding its way down past the mouth of the passage to dash itself into what sounded like a deep basin many feet below them. The falling water made light spilling through the opening behind Nico dance on the walls, mixing with the luminesce from the mould and refracting through the quartz crystals into flickers of rainbow.

"The River Lethe," Nico said, jerking his thumb behind him. "The source is in the rocks above our heads. It's bigger than any waterfall in the Overworld. One big rule: Don't touch it. Actually, don't even go near it and definitely don't drink the water. The last thing I need is a bunch of zombified demigods trailing around behind me without a brain. Well, with even less of a brain than usual."

"So you're telling me that if we touch that water we'll go mad?" Craig Maddleson, head of the Hephaestus cabin, asked. "Even a tiny splash? Great, thanks for that. You should have got us to sign a disclaimer."

"You won't go mad," Nico said, unable to keep the sadness out of his voice. "No insanity but the Lethe is the river of forgetfulness. You'll just... _forget. _It depends on your exposure to it and your intentions, I guess. Sometimes you'll forget big things, sometimes little things. A long period or just a short period. It doesn't matter how much you lose, anyway. Losing part of your life and having to relearn it later second hand... that's worse than insanity."

Craig snorted. "Wow. I thought you were meant to be telling us how the Underworld _isn't _depressing?"

Nico glared at him. "It's _not_," he snapped. "The Lethe is the water you are bathed in after Elysium, after you've chosen rebirth. Forgetfulness, when used correctly, is a symbol of hope. New life. Reincarnation. It wipes away your whole past and points you towards your future. Throw your regrets and cares and worries and what ifs and maybes into the River Styx on the way down, bathe in the Lethe on the way up. Your new life all begins here."

Nico gave everyone present bar Rachel a long, hard look. "If any of you even make it to Elysium in the first place, that is," he added casually, eyes flaring maliciously. "Don't think I don't know whose ear to whisper in to stop_ that _happening."

"Nico," Rachel said warningly, stepping forward and taking his hand again. It was like a block of ice.

"What, you think they deserve Elysium?" Nico asked, scorn dripping from his voice. "After the kind of stunts they pulled on me?"

"You're not here to terrify them," Rachel said, getting close to his ear to that the sound of the waterfall covered her words and made sure they were heard only by Nico. "That wasn't the point of this. Don't threaten them with banishment to Tartarus and don't pick open healing scabs by pointing out dead grandmothers just to be a dick. Let them know you are a _person_."

She was so close to Nico that felt his jaw shift forwards to jut in irritation; she could hear him grinding his teeth even above the tumbling water. Then he seemed to tense further in a new way, as if just registering her proximity, and pull away, exhaling shakily.

"Get ready," he said. "I've got two more trips left in me. I don't know what kind of state I'll be in when this is over."

"I've got you," Rachel said, barely getting to the end of her sentence before the world vanished into screaming darkness.

* * *

They reappeared in Persephone's garden, the jewelled trees and bushes winking coldly at them through the permanent gloam.

Nico may not look heavy, but having someone drop and become dead weight on you was a challenge, no matter how scrawny they were. Rachel had to hold Nico up for much longer this time; the trickle of blood that had been working its way from one nostril after the last trip had become a gushing torrent from each side now. The tide of red made it to his chin and dripped to the floor before he could even try to hide it.

"What's wrong with him?" Ray asked, stepping forward with his inner medic clearly taking control.

"He's wearing himself out," Rachel said, battling to keep Nico upright. "When you're a child of the Big Three you have a huge amount of power but the intensity of it wasn't exactly made for a mortal body. Shadow travelling is one of the most exhausting things Nico does."

Alyssa's head snapped around from where she had been admiring a sapphire the size of an eagle egg. "Will he be able to get us back to Camp?" she asked, panic hitching her voice to border on hysterical.

"With great power… comes great need to take a nap," Nico managed, déjà vu washing over him as he said it. Well, Percy had been the only one around last time he had used that line and it was too good to only use once.

He closed his eyes as the garden lurched into a hurdy-gurdy motion and threatened to make him lose the coffee he'd managed for breakfast. "But I'll get you back up top. I'm the only one who should be stuck down here."

"Where are we?" Chloe asked, looking around in awe. Her instincts as a Demeter kid kicked in and she wandered away from the group, brushing her hand against the gilded tree bark. She lovingly skimmed her fingers across emeralds and jade shaped like maple and sycamore leaves, exact replicas down to the tiniest vein and detail, and cupped a pear-shaped garnet. "Does this _grow _down here?"

"It grows," Nico asked, finally finding the strength to pull always from Rachel. "With roots in magma and crude oil it grows. My father created it for my stepmother, Persephone. He knew that she missed the world above during her time here and wanted to try and recreate it for her. At the time, he wasn't exactly welcome above the ground; it was hard for him to just take her for a walk amongst real trees and real flowers. So he did the best he could with what he had. Even though he was pretty much banned from the Overworld he still felt strongly enough about its beauty and merits to recreate it down here the only way he knew how.

"Walk around. Persephone is away for the summer so she won't turn you into a flower. You get to escape that particular punishment because luckily you're not me. So take a good look and tell me if the Underworld hates the Overworld, or that Hades is dark and gloomy and depressing, a place for dead people, an ugly place. I need to sit down."

Rachel helped Nico sit down onto a stone bench. He wobbled dangerously and Rachel grabbed the back of his head and forced it down between his knees. Muffled curses gradually transformed into slurred thanks as the blood rushed back to his head. With a frisson of fear, though, Rachel noted the blood dripping to the flags beneath them, swelling into a growing pool.

When his heart had stopped pounding he slowly sat up; the garden swam in front of him but no longer had that tell-tale darkening at the edges that signalled that he was about to pass out. Around him the counsellors were gathered in a semicircle.

"What, you're bored with Persephone's garden already?" Nico asked with a snort. "Yeah, I guess that figures."

"Look, Nico…" Ray began.

Nico held up a hand, cutting him off. He took a deep breath, pouring all of his recent resentment towards the campers into his words. "No. Don't say anything. This is my life, okay? Don't pity me for it. I _like_ it. Is being a child of the Underworld hard? Yes, it is. I spend all of my time with the dead and you know what that taught me? Life is short. And life is _hard_. Those are two things that define life.

"You never have enough time. Every single person I showed you in the line earlier had plans, hopes, dreams. Every single one of them. They all had things that they wanted to do when they were alive, you know? The wanted to lose ten pounds. Go on a cruise. Take up dancing. Find true love, get married and grow old with that special someone. They wanted to go back to school. Hell, maybe they even just wanted to clean out the garage. They had _plans. _Things they were going to do when they got round to it. Except they never did.

"They thought that they had all the time in the world and then they were here. In that line. I have to deal with that reality every second of every minute of every hour of every day. The whispers of the dead are my alarm clock and my freaking lullaby. And sure, you guys might realise that people die. And you also know, deep down, that one day you will die too. But for you it's one day, in the future, a long time away. Because you have _plans. _I don't get that luxury. I get all the immediacy of death all the time. That has made me the way I am. The person you see before you and play tricks on and sneer at is reminded constantly that nothing lasts, that everything anyone has means nothing in the end when it's all taken away. Chew on that next time before you mock me."

"I don't know how you live like that," Alyssa said quietly, tears shimmering in her eyes even in the dim light of the garden.

Nico shrugged tiredly but managed a smile. "I kick ass and take names and maybe I make it look easy but really… it's not. If I'm not getting petals courtesy of my stepmother then I'm on a quest for some dead guy who needs my help. Or getting manipulated by a psychotic ex-king."

"I don't have any Greek brothers or sisters like you guys. Not anymore. I don't have anyone to share the burden with. I have to carry the weight of the responsibilities of the whole of the Underworld because my only living sibling is an escapee from the Underworld and can't be recognised with an official position down here because that would be acknowledgement of her escape. And believe me those responsibilities are not light. They come with all of my father's expectations attached and do you think he's the easier guy to deal with? Do you think he deals with disappointment or failure well? No. He doesn't. But I get to spend time with him. How many of you have regular contact with your godly parent? I do. He values my opinion. When I'm not fucking up, that is."

He rose to his feet, suddenly mad at everyone gathered around him. However, he got up too quickly and Rachel had to step forward and grab his arm to keep him upright. His vision had gone black and fuzzy at the edges and he could feel Rachel shaking with the strain of holding him up, but he felt like he had to make them understand. That meant standing up and showing them how strong he was.

Besides, he had the _right _to be mad after the way that had treated him, the disrespect they had showed to him.

"Nico, I think you should sit," Rachel said quietly. "Just for another couple of minutes."

Nico shook his head and pulled his arm out of her grasp, standing on his own two feet and facing the representatives of the newest generation of demigods head on. Many took a couple of steps back from him.

"It's not easy being the kind of person a god asks for advice about god stuff," he said. "It's hard but it's who I am. It's not just what you see, the black clothes and the seeing dead people. It's much more than that. More than you could ever comprehend.

"So mock me all you like but don't you ever think you know who I am or what I am about. I am Nico di Angelo, the one and only. Never forget that and never presume to think that I am less than any of you just because of who my father is. I am no worse than any of you and in so many ways I am so much more. Got it? So there you have it. Here endeth the lesson. Now hold onto your hats and buckle up, kiddies. We are going home even if my brain leaks out of my ears."

He drew in all the energy of the shadows of the Underworld to him, felt the rush of cold, unforgiving power and let darkness swallow all who were assembled in the garden for the final time.


	6. Chapter 6

**And we're done here. Sorry this chapter took so long to post. I had to try and tie up more things than I thought and it was a little complicated. **

**There are slight elements of Rico (Racio?) in this chapter. I can't believe how hard I ship the two of them and the more time I spend in the fandom the more intense it gets.**

**Thank you to everyone who read this, and special thanks to everyone who reviewed it. You have all been so, so kind.**

**Particular thanks to my friend Proud to Be Plug, to whom this fic essentially belongs. He has put up with a lot from me in order to get it finished. XD.**

**Over and officially out,**

**Mission to Marzipan.**

* * *

Rachel stared into the middle distance, tapping the eraser of her pencil idly against a blank page of her sketchbook. She didn't even realise she was doing it, couldn't hear its rhythmic tapping. She was flat on her stomach on the bed in her room at the Big House, with her mind occupied with the events of the day. The whiteness of the paper yawned emptily at her, mocking her for her inability to even doodle idly.

Nico: the destroyer of the world. _Nico_, for the love of the gods. And yet… as much as she wanted to be incredulous and believe that it was ridiculous, she wasn't certain that she could be totally sure that it wouldn't come to pass. The things Nico had seen and done, the things he dealt with on a daily basis… was it any wonder that so many of Hades' kids lost it, all things considered?

"I can't believe you did that today," Annabeth said, leaning against the doorjamb of Rachel's room in the Big House.

Some form of prescience had told Rachel that Annabeth was going to appear and she didn't jump. Instead, she just closed her sketchbook. It flipped past rough outlines and sketches that seemed to be featuring Nico more and more often lately as it closed.

"What were you trying to achieve with that little Underworld Cribs show you had him put on for the counsellors?" Annabeth continued. "Having Nico show off his powerbase isn't going to make him less likely to flip and destroy the world. In fact, probably _more_ so when he realises everything that he has under his command."

"It wasn't about that," Rachel said, letting the pencil fall from her grip. She swung around so that she was sitting on the edge of the bed and sighed heavily. "You should have seen him this morning, Annabeth, when they played that trick on him with his Cabin. He was angry, sure, but more than anything else he was just so _sad. _It was painful to see. I just thought that maybe if people understood him better they'd be less likely to pick on him, less likely to treat him as an outsider, an easy target. If he can feel included here at Camp then maybe that's the key to keeping him sane."

Annabeth digested that for a beat and then nodded and crossed the threshold, sinking down onto the end of the bed. "I guess that makes sense," she said. "He has always been kind of bummed out about how he gets treated around here." She paused, her fingers worrying at a hole in the knitted throw Rachel had on top of the comforter.

"How did you manage to look at him and not see a ticking time bomb?" she asked suddenly, looking up and locking on to Rachel's gaze. "When I saw him at breakfast… I don't know how I'm meant to spend the rest of my days if I'm always wondering if today will be the day he'll flip and destroy the world."

"I just looked at him like he was Nico," Rachel said. "The same as always. We can't treat him differently, Annabeth. What if that's what sets him off in the first place? And the prophecy said 'raise _or _raze'. It's one or the other. He could just easily save the world from destruction as be its destroyer. You have to remember that you're looking at someone who has the power to save the world if he makes the right choices. If we _help_ him to make the right choices."

Annabeth sighed heavily. "Oh, sure. Sounds so simple. Do the dishes. Take out the trash. Help Nico not be all four Horsemen rolled into one. Clean the lint trap in the dryer. You know, the usual."

Rachel's forehead creased into a frown. "What's a lint trap?" she wondered.

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "You know, just when I start to forget that you're filthy rich and never have to lift a finger…"

"Hey, I leave the domestic goddess stuff to the actual domestic goddesses," Rachel said. "Don't pick on me for that. The point, though, is that this whole thing doesn't have to be difficult. All you have to do is treat him like you did before you knew what might happen."

Annabeth tilted her had in accession. "Yeah. You're right. I'm not exactly acting very wise over this, am I? The whole thing is just throwing me off so bad. It's just… it's Nico, you know? I can't imagine Nico destroying the world without destroying himself. He'd a pain in the ass but I don't want that for him."

"No one does," Rachel said. "No one who cares about him does. We'll get through this, Annabeth."

Annabeth's breath hitched and the room dissolved into a watery blur for a self-indulgent moment before she sniffed and cuffed away the tears. "I just… Gods this is selfish, but it's Percy as well, not just Nico. You know what's going to happen if… if Nico does go off the deep end. That by itself is enough pull me apart, but Thalia and Percy are the only ones who are really a match for him and if Percy has to fight Nico, maybe even kill him… I just don't know what would happen. It would tear him to pieces, Rachel. Honestly, it would. The thought of Percy having to do that... I want it not to happen so badly for Nico _and _Percy that it feels like I can't look at it rationally."

"It was only a heads up," Rachel said. "The Oracle just wanted to warn us to keep a closer eye on him. There was nothing definite about the prophecy. There's no reason for any of that to happen, okay?"

"Yeah," Annabeth said. "Yes. Okay. Tomorrow I am going to march into that cabin of his at six a.m. and tell him to get his skinny ass out of bed and get a haircut."

Rachel smiled. "Just like every morning?"

"Damn straight just like every morning," Annabeth confirmed. She exhaled heavily, seemingly feeling lighter, and then said, "I've got to go. Percy's waiting for me. I've got to tell him about what the Oracle said. I just… needed to talk first."

"Are you sure you want to tell Percy?" Rachel asked, wincing.

"Why wouldn't I?" Annabeth said. "He needs to know. Like I said, if Nico goes rouge, and I mean _if_, Percy is going to have to be there to pick up the pieces."

Rachel sighed and ran a hand across her face. "Okay," she said slowly. "Okay. I just hope he can keep it from Nico."

"What, you don't trust Percy? Percy, of all people?" Annabeth demanded.

"It's not that," Rachel said. "It's just that when it comes to keeping secrets… Percy could use a better poker face."

"Well, we still don't know if we're going to keep it a secret," Annabeth said stiffly. "I mean, in the short run it was probably a good thing, but…"

"If we don't tell him, he might destroy the world," Rachel said tiredly. "Yup, I hear you. But the same is true if we _do_ tell him. We've already had this argument."

"So what do we do, then?" Annabeth demanded, and there was a definite bite to her voice. Rachel didn't take it personally. This was something with too many maybes, something which, in many cases, flew in the face of her usual form of thinking. She was never comfortable without definite inputs that could be factored in.

Rachel shrugged. She was more comfortable in dealing with such fluidities. "Not everything has to be tied up in a neat little bow all the time," she said gently. "Especially not so far in advance."

Annabeth wrinkled her nose, like she'd just got a bad taste in her mouth. "Doesn't it?" she asked dryly.

Rachel smiled fondly. "Okay, how about this," she said. "You tell Percy and he is the deciding vote on whether we tell Nico or not. I vote no. You're obviously leaning more towards yes. Let's wait and see what Percy thinks."

Annabeth nodded, biting her lip. "Okay," she said eventually. "Thank you."

"No problem," Rachel said. "We're in this together, okay?"

"Got it," Annabeth said, standing up and walking to the door.

"Although whatever we decide, Annabeth, it doesn't really change anything either way," Rachel said, catching Annabeth just as she was about to leave. "You know that, right? We don't treat him differently whatever happens. The outcome is the same: we just are there for him. I— _we_ love Nico. He'll get through this. We all will. No matter what. If we decide whether or not to tell him now, or not for a week, or in a month, the plan of action is the same. I'll see you later, okay?"

"Yup," Annabeth said. "Bye."

Annabeth's footsteps retreated down the hall, leaving Rachel chewing on her lip. Despite what she had said to Annabeth she was still worried. It just didn't pay to have a flustered Oracle, though. She was who demigods came to for advice; therefore, she wasn't allowedto let worries get to her. That wouldn't exactly be a confidence booster for those who sought her out. The warning from the Oracle about Nico was a Big Deal, though, whether she liked it or not. She'd be crazy _not _to be worried about it.

Still, like she said to Annabeth: one step at a time, she guessed. Take it slow. See how things turned out and if it started to look bad then do something about it. But most of all she had had to be there.

Nico had been there for her in the past and she could be there for him to remind him of who he was and what he and Olympus stood for. To grab him by the scruff of the neck and drag his scrawny ass, kicking and screaming if necessary, back to where he belonged.

In the light. With her.

The pencil was back in her hand almost without her thinking about it. She turned to the sketch of Nico that had been marred by the Oracle's prophecy. She drew intently, trying her best to blot out the words with her drawing. As she fixed Nico forever in graphite the way he had been yesterday afternoon, she vowed with every stroke of her pencil that this was the way he would stay as long as she had breath left in her body.

The world was just going to have to find itself a different way to end because by the gods themselves she wasn't going to let Nico do it, not now or ever.

And that was the way it would always be.


End file.
